This chapter tests cycles of silence in Lagos to evaluate its applicability in a Global South context where, unlike Baltimore, the state and the police have limited resources. The chapter’s results come from an original survey of shopkeepers, paired with interviews and observation, in the city’s expansive markets, pockets in which “area boy” crews engage in violence and extortion. Consistent with the patterns found in Baltimore, area boy violence reduces cooperation by boosting perceived retaliation risk and making cooperation norms appear to be weaker than they are. Underlying cooperation support exists among shopkeepers, the chapter’s final section explains, in part, because the area boy crews have largely failed to gain legitimacy with Lagosians.

This chapter tests cycles of silence theory in Baltimore to evaluate its applicability in a Global North context where the state and the police are well resourced. It provides background on how Baltimore residents become exposed to violence by drug crews and details the results from an original survey of residents in the city’s violence- affected communities. Violence heightens perceived retaliation risk, and the heightened risk perception in turn pushes residents who support cooperation to keep that support private. As result, residents share less information than they otherwise would in absence of this norm suppression. The chapter’s final section explains that the underlying cooperation support exists, because the drug crews have largely failed to gain legitimacy in eyes of residents.

This chapter details cycles of silence theory explaining how criminal groups constrain citizen cooperation with the police. Criminal group violence not only reduces cooperation by heightening retaliation risk to cooperators but also by making community norms favoring cooperation appear weaker than they are to citizens. Due to violence- induced retaliation risk, citizens who support cooperation are forced to keep that support private. The potency of social norms in driving human behavior means that this suppression of norms that favor cooperation ultimately reduce witnesses’ willingness to come forward with information. The chapter also interrogates the theory’s central premise that underlying support for cooperation exists in communities. Perceptions of police and criminal group legitimacy are an important driver of support, so cycles of silence dynamics primarily operate in communities where criminal groups have failed to gain legitimacy. The chapter then theorizes why criminal groups’ primary goal of illicit economic gain undermines their legitimization efforts.